Cracked Glass and Cinder Girls
by tender.glassy.romance
Summary: Let's list all of my current problems: My feet are small. I am now the owner of a very impractical glass shoe. There is a plot to kill the Prince. There is a plot to kill me. I hate the Prince. I think I'm falling in love with my would be murder. D.HG.HP
1. Chapter I

_Priceless_

Hermione needs money. Prince Draco's got it. The only natural thing to do is politely steal it from him. Wedding Bells will be ringing.

* * *

_**It was my father's job to supply for our family. He did it well, but even good men fall on rough times. He did things that he wasn't proud of. He got caught up with bad men. He took their money to keep his family eating. Only problem was... he had no way to pay them back. **_

_**That's where the trouble started. **_

"Hide the candles!" shouted my father. He propped his leg on the rough wooden table. He looked like a strong and daring sea captain facing the winds of war as he ordered his large family about with a tarnished candlestick holder waving in the air like a beacon of his superiority. His hair frosted over with wisdom swished in the wind coming from the open window.

"Close all the windows! Bar up the door!"

"With what?" screamed my mother, "our heads? There is nothing left in the house that they haven't already taken!"

"Bar the door, Woman!" my father refused to be reckoned with, but my mother had other plans.

"Fine!" she bellowed.

"Hand me that table your laying all over." she continued, as she marched over to him with her hands on her hips.

My father looked boggled for a moment. The table was the symbol of his authority, so to give it over to his wife was ultimate castration. "I don't think taking the table is necessary." He pouted.

"Table!" My father sighed and drooped his shoulders as he propped the heavy table against the door. The family sighed as they rested against the table, until a heavy pounding sent the door shaking.

"Granger! Come out here!" the ruthless voice of a loan shark echoed through our house.

"Kids…Wife," my father whispered, "hide in the corner. Do not make a sound."

"I know you are in there Granger."

"What do you want?" Father called.

"A night on the town…what do you think? I want my money, and if you don't have it, I'll take it out of your backside!"

My father gulped, and wiped the sweat off of his thin face. "Now there's no need for that. We can work this out."

"This isn't a negotiation Granger!"

"Surely, there must be something I can do…"

"How old is your eldest wench?"

"Fifteen."

"I want her."

"No," my mother whispered harshly. She pulled me to her bosom and held me tight. "Don't even think of giving that blackguard my daughter!"

"Of course not, Woman! What do you take me for?" Father whispered back.

"She's too young! You are too old!" He yelled to the loan shark.

"I don't want to marry her! Don't be a brick headed barrel of slop! Haven't you heard the news?"

My father's face grew red from the insult, and redder from not being able to do anything about it. "News of what?"

"News of Prince Draco and his search for his bride. He fell in love with her at some fancy ball, but the little twit run out on him before midnight. They say all the slop has of her is a glass shoe. Dumb princey can't remember what the chit looked like and only can identify her by her tiny feet. So, every Tom, Dick, and Harry's running around trying to get his daughter's little footsies into that slipper,"

"How does this affect my girl?"

"Don't be daft! I don't have a daughter, and I need one fast. The prince's men are coming into my town in a couple of hours and I need a girl, quick. So, how big are the girl's feet?"

"It doesn't matter! She's not going!" yelled my mother.

"I can handle this, Woman!" my father whispered.

"It doesn't matter! She's not going!" Father yelled. My mother and I exchanged annoyed looks.

"If I don't have myself a girl in one minute, I'll make one out of you. Get the picture Granger?" My father looked pleadingly at Mother, and she only glared with a vengeance.

"This is your mess, and it does not concern her. Fix it yourself."

"Granger… I'm ready to make a woman out of you!"

"Woman please! Listen to reason… if she gets picked, then think of the life she will have. Think of the life we will have!" my father said urgently.

"It may be a trick!" Mother yelled.

"He's a loan shark... but he is no crook." My father said defensely.

"Oh for pity's sake," Mother swore.

"**Granger!"**

"Please!" Father begged.

"I'll do it." I said. My father needed me, besides seeing him beg like a dog made me despise the world just a little bit more.

"Thank you Heaven!" my father sighed, as he shoved me out the door. I turned around to watch my father mumble a few words that sounded like: "Loveyoukeepyournosecleangodspeedbye." He then proceeded to slam the door in my face, after shoving a few items of clothing in my arms.

I turned around to look at the loan shark, and saw that he had brought his band of "enforcers" with him. All three of them looked rather scrawny and held their lusty prepubscent gazes on me. I could only imagine what sort of pain three twelve year old boys could inflict on a family of twelve with five hulking young men good at rough play. I loved my father but he truly was an idiot. The loan shark put an arm around my shoulder, and grinned at his boys. "Well boys, it looks like I've got myself a daughter."

"There now girl, show us your feet!" ordered one of the kids.

I lifted up my worn skirt and showed my feet to the little prat. They whistled, and commented that I'd win for sure.

"You had better win or Daddy's found a new housekeeper," The loan shark smirked in my face. I wanted to slam his grubby face in the ground.

* * *

"Greetings from the king, Country Baron." The regal voice of the King's messenger reached my ears. I sucked in my breath, as I saw the Prince's carriage and all of his men surrounding it. 

"My warm greetings to his majesty. What can, his humble servant, do for the king?" The Loan Shark asked.

"Do you have a young woman in your household?"

"Only my maiden daughter resides here. How can she serve the king?" The Loan Shark lied.

"I shall need to try a very important shoe on her foot. Prince Draco is searching for his lady love, and I shall need to check your daughter's foot,"

"Whatever we can do to serve the king. Please, come into my home." The Loan Shark ushered the messenger into his home, and I waited for my cue.

"Daughter, come hither!"

My heart slammed against my chest as my voice cracked with my answer, "Yes, Father!" I paused for a moment before revealing myself. I curtsied to the men in the room. My "father" sat me down in a chair in front of the messenger. Without a word to me, the snooty messenger peeled off my dirty shoe, and easily replaced it with a shiny slipper. I was surprised that the shoe slipped so easily onto my waiting foot. It seemed all too easy, and moreover very anticlimactic. The whole process was over too quickly and I had expected a native dance and a few chants before the whole thing concluded. I was very let down. Where was the hype?

The messenger's eyes opened wide, and flies flew into the Loan Shark's open mouth, and time had seemed to stop. Suddenly, time seemed to speed up and I was barely able to keep up. The messenger looked all around my foot and made sure I had not in some way cheated. The Loan Shark began to count the number of new cloaks he was going to buy, and I still wasn't apprehending all that was going on.

The messenger then got up from his place beside my foot, and sprinted to the waiting carriage outside. The Loan Shark and I raced to the window to see what was going on outside. The messenger spoke to a few others outside the carriage, before one fine dressed man knocked on the carriage door, and whispered to the gloved hand that poked out of the carriage. The hand made a "bring forth" motion, and the finely dressed man began to walk towards the house.

The Loan Shark and I exchanged looks before placing ourselves back on the chairs. The man walked up to the door and smiled, before entering. "Princess,"

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

"Are you paying attention Draco?" Narcissa asked. Her light blue eyes were fixated on every inch of his blank face. He wondered how she could possibly be paying attention herself if she was so intent on staring at him.

Draco looked at his mother and frowned. " I have heard everything Master Finwiddle has said about policies of state, royal expectations and so on."

The Queen glared at him before turning back toward the tutor as a signal that he ought to continue his lecture. Draco bit his inner cheek and faced forward in an effort to appear studious. Draco sat perfectly erect on his hard wooden stool, but his eyes continued to shift back and forth between Finwiddle's mouth and the other objects in the ornately decorated school room.

Just as Finwiddle began his speech on foreign relations with the neighboring territories, Draco suddenly asked, "What a lovely little lie we've played on the whole of the rest of the world, or at least the relevant parts of it that actually manage to matter."

Narcissa's mouth formed into a long slit, but she allowed Draco to continue without interruption. Master Finwiddle did not try very hard to appear pleased as he was rudely interruped. His lecture was of the utmost importance and urgency and quite pleasing to the ear if he did say so himself.

"...Circulating a disgusting rumor that some girl ran away from me (as if any eligible girl would ever run away from a bachelor prince) in such a hurry that she managed to leave her terribly impractical glass shoe on our marble steps.," Draco continued as he examined a loose thread on his thin shirt, "As if someone at the ball wouldn't have noticed some sad sack of a girl teetering across the dance floor as if possessed in an attempt to keep her balance while wearing shoes with no traction."

As his mother delicately narrowed her eyes as she was prone to do and Master Finwiddle's upper eyelid began to twitch, Draco put a finger up this chin and smirked, "I used quite a few "as if's" in that statement. Finwiddle you must improve my vocabulary."

Finwiddle managed to look uncomfortable, while Narcissa's eyes cut through Draco's skin like a letter opener. Findwiddle knew of Narcissa's silent wrath and could not fathom why the boy continued to bait her at every turn. If King Lucious was a black python, she was the snake venom.

"Come come Finwiddle tell Old Draco who is responsible for creating this little tactic? You? One of the Advisors?" Draco's cold eyes drilled into Finwiddle's and the short man turned helplessly to the Queen. He was quite between a rock and hard place.

"Ah Mother," the Prince said, turning towards her, "I knew I had you to thank for contributing your shoes, but I trust that that was the limit of your involvement." Draco's statement hung in the air like a question and Narcissa had the decency to ignore it.

"Don't be insufferable. With King Lordis and Chief What's-His-Face all seeking wives from the same general area we had to drum up some sort of interest in you. It's purely strategic . Some overly romantic heiress with land and gold will find the temptation too great."

"So my glittering good looks and charm aren't enough?" Draco asked sarcastically.

"You had the charisma of a dead worm at the ball. The event was disintegrating quickly. People were noticing your general disdain for human contact and cold attitude towards everyone and everything. A distraction was in order."

Draco glowered, but even he could acknowledge some well known truths about himself.. He was a selfish, thin boy with the disposition and skin coloring of a cold clam. At the ball, his thick tunic only served to exaggerate his frail frame, while his oversized stockings only made it more obvious that he was incapable of filling them and caused his leggings to sag down into his tight dress slippers. If it had not been a tradition that he should wear the same outfit that had been passed down his family line like a bread basket, he might have looked somewhat acceptable.

Feeling slightly embarrassed that his mother's brand of blunt honesty had hurt him, Draco fired back at her, "And what if your distraction comes to bit you in the neck? What if some downtrodden servant happens upon this glorious slipper?"

Narcissa blanched with lady like grace and then waved her hand as if fanning away the idea,. "Don't be silly. Benzelark was specifically instructed to go to all the noble and wealthy homes within a two hundred meter radius first. His riding party was to visit a peasant or two purely for the sake of publicity and to increase national pride. Our specifications were very clear on that. We must throw them a bone every now and again. They must think that even they can elevate given the right circumstances. It increase morale and if you were listening to Finwiddle you'd know that. " Draco bit his inner lip again and Finwiddle seemed less agitated.

"Besides," she continued flippantly, "The poor have massive feet. It is immensely common and necessary for their balance while seeding and planting or whatever else they are deemed worthy enough to do. There's no concern of that being an issue."

* * *

"Benzelark smells like a perfumed piece of sugar dipped in sunshine," Hermione thought to herself as she glided through countryside in his plush carriage of purples and light golds. The seats were soft taffy under her bottom and the aroma of sweet meats encapsulated the cabin. She tried hard to ignore that her dirty skirts left light stains on the seat fabric as she tentatively reached for a treat. Benzelark looked away from her as if to pretend he did not see the marks on his benches. She was grateful.

* * *

I'm not sure what brought me back here. Boredom probably.


End file.
